Country music star warms up for show at Campbell home

Nathan Gray/Independent Mail Country music artist Darryl Worley and Ware Belvin sing “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” by Hank Williams together Sunday during Worley’s visit to the Richard M. Campbell Veterans Nursing Home.

The headliner of Sunday night’s Celebrate Anderson concert at the Civic Center took some time before the show to visit with veterans at the home and express his appreciation for their service to the country.

“You could eat off the floors here; it’s amazing,” said Worley, who has traveled extensively to play for U.S. troops around the globe. “You guys should be proud of the facility. There’s 220 (patients) here? That’s not a little one.”

As impressed as Worley was with the staff and conditions at the Campbell home, he said Americans could and should do better by veterans.

“I think we could do more and we could do better at what we’re doing,” said the singer, who has visited seven other VA facilities this year alone. “I think we’re better than we have been in the past, although, obviously, there’s been some bad publicity lately ... we need to concentrate on these young men and women who are coming back from these conflicts. We’ve got people who need help, who are struggling spiritually and mentally. We’ve got guys coming back and are struggling and they just throw them out on the street and say ‘Good luck!’ Then you hear they’re getting in trouble; it’s not rocket science.”

Worley encountered Ware Belvin, an Army veteran of World War II, in one of the hallways and introduced himself as a singer.

Worley asked Belvin, who was wounded in the Allied campaign against the Germans, what kind of music he liked.

“Glenn Miller,” replied Belvin, a native of Kings Mountain, N.C.

“Do you like any country music?” Worley asked with a smile.

“I like some of it,” the wheelchair-bound Belvin replied, before beginning to hum “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” by Hank Williams. Worley quickly joined in and, within seconds, they were singing the chorus for a hallway full of approving listeners.

“That was awesome,” said Worley as he leaned in to hug Belvin.

Worley made a fan of Belvin, who said he’s been at the Campbell home for “too long ... although I will say this is the cleanest place I’ve ever been.”

When asked if a country music career was in his future, Belvin laughed and said, “That was just playing. I was having a little fun.”

Worley spent over an hour in the activity room, shaking hands and asking the veterans about their service. When one of the them asked him to sing them a song, he said he didn’t have his guitar with him.

“I said, ‘Wait a minute,’” replied Judy Bragg, a Liberty native there to visit her husband, Jim, an Army veteran. She went and found Worley a guitar and he played his hit, “Have You Forgotten,” and an unnamed gospel piece he is still writing.

“We got serenaded twice,” gushed Judy.

Judy Bragg was just one of many relatives at the home Sunday to visit patients there. She and Kathy Fitzgerald, an Anderson resident, were there to see her husband, Robert, another Army veteran. They complimented Worley and others — including local car and motorcycle clubs, a group that trains service dogs and others — who make time for Campbell home’s veterans.

“It always surprises me how people think about the veterans,” said Kathy. “Robert couldn’t be in a better place.”

Judy quickly agreed with that sentiment, pointing out the cleanliness and praising the hard work of the Campbell home’s staff.

“Jim’s been in two places before this and they don’t even compare,” she said.

Follow Michael Eads on Twitter @MikeEads_AIM

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